Watching Movies Copied via USB Through HDMI

It's been widely reported that the X can only output video via HDMI that was recorded using it's internal camera. Many have speculated that this is due to the non-implementation of HDCP on the HDMI port. I have found that this is untrue.

I took some video, compressed it to .3gp (which is Droid's native video codec) in Sorenson Squeeze to 854 x 480 (Droid's screen resolution), copied it into the Droid's Video Gallery and played it out on a 37" HD monitor. It looked ok -- but it was only 480p.

Then I took the same video, compressed it to .3gp in Sorenson Squeeze to 1280 x 720 (Droid's HDMI output resolution limit), copied it into the Droid's Video Gallery and played it out on the same 37" HD monitor. And it looked very good -- as it was 720p.

Finally, just for the hell of it, I took the same video, compressed it to .3gp in Sorenson Squeeze to 1920 x 1080, copied it into the Droid's Video Gallery and it would not play out at all. Not a surprise -- as the decoder in the X is known to not handle 1080p.

The key to success seems to consist of 3 parts:

1. DO NOT let the Droid convert the video upon import -- when prompted only select "No, Just Copy".

2. Also, if you are encoding to 1280 x 720 (720p) you must convert to .3gp at a combined bitrate (audio + video) of no higher than 1.5 Mb/s. In my tests, the X could not playback bitrates that were higher that 1.5Mb/s.

It is worth noting that Sorenson Squeeze is an expensive compression tool that does multipass encoding. I'm sure there's open source encoding software in the wild that will convert video to .3gp -- but I kinda doubt it will be multipass.

Regarding runtime, it's worth repeating that I tested 1.5 Mb/s to find out what the upper limit was for external HD viewing. To be honest, the video quality would probably be perceived as quite "watchable" to a number of people 1 Mb/s.

If I were traveling and wanted to have some movies on hand -- and I WAS NOT sure if I'd ever be jacking-into an external monitor -- I'd go for a MUCH, MUCH lower bitrate and resolution -- especially for display on a 854 x 480 -- 4.3" screen.

However, if I knew I was going to be largely watching on an external HD monitor -- I'd go for the 1.5Mb/s maximum.

So, you're probably wondering about the effect of that FAT32 2GB file limit:

So, you can see that from a Feature Film point of view -- the FAT32 2GB limit is not an issue due to Droid's apparent maximum bitrate cap of 1.5Mb/s.

From a storage volume point of view, I purchased a 32GB Micro SD Card for $99 with the phone. And that 32GB card should be able to store 50 Hours 40 Minutes of video at the highest bitrate of 1.5Mb/s. Which, at an average of 2 hours per Feature Movie, equates to 26 movies.

That is true -- FAT32 as a file system is not limited to 2GB.
However, it seems Android's implementation limits video files to 2GB.

To be honest, I have not personally tested the 2GB limit on Android -- I gleaned that from many other threads on the topic.
However, my point was that even at 1.5Mb/s -- the 2GB limit is not an issue from a Feature Film "running time" point of view.